This blog is the final project for Visual Anthropology class taught by Dr. Steven Fedorowicz at Kansai Gaidai University. The project tries to focus on one particular izakaya in the city of Hirakata, Osaka prefecture. The aim is to depict an establishment, with its material culture and its living objects – the visitors – as is it is spring 2007.
"Characteristics of the Japanese found in the earliest Chinese accounts and which still seem true today include honesty, politeness, gentleness in peace and bravery in way, and a love of liquor" (Tsunoda et al 1958, quoted from S.Smith "Drinking and Sobriety in Japan" 1988, Columbia University). Consuming alcoholic beverages holds and important place in Japanese social relations (Smith 1988). It is seen as way to strengthen friendships as well as reinforce more formal relations with customers or between employers and employees, helping to build careers. Thus, drinking out with colleges on several nights a week is a common practice. Drinking in Japan is first and foremost, a social activity, where the usually rather rigid set of rules is suspended and less formal alternative rules take effect (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1969 and Smith 1988).

Hirakata has a population of approximately 400 000. What sets it apart from many others suburbs between Kyoto and Osaka is it's large number of foreign students. Approximately 300 of them is staying in dormitories, apartments and home-stay families during most of the school year. While local community is not too fond of foreigners disturbing the quiet of the neighbourhood, owners of restaurants and bars in the vicinity are cashing in on students' night out. This project can also act as an account of interaction between people living in Hirakata and the ever-changing community of foreign students, an interaction that involves more than grocery shopping or disturbing the neighbours.